


Punch and Pictionary

by JayEz



Series: Of manta rays and holidays [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 221B celebrating New Year's Eve, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Holmes Brothers, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, M/M, Multi, Mycroft IS the British Government, New Year's Eve, POV Lestrade, Pictionary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 09:40:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5580700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayEz/pseuds/JayEz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Yeah, mate… About New Year,” Greg says, and John narrows his eyes. “Mind if I bring a plus one?”</p>
<p>(aka Some Developing Relationship Mystrade New Year’s Eve Fluff. Happy 2016, folks!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Punch and Pictionary

**Author's Note:**

> The moment I finished the first part I knew this NEEDED a sequel. A huge thank you to [Iriya](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Iriya/pseuds/Iriya) for the thorough beta-job!
> 
> PS: Latveria is not a real country.

Whenever Greg allowed himself to imagine what dating Mycroft Holmes would be like, somehow his fantasies always conjured up a slow burning romance. 

That couldn’t be further from the truth, though – in reality, he and Mycroft end up snogging on his indecently comfortable sofa after their first date featuring a delicious dinner at one of Greg’s favourite haunts where Mycroft looked so utterly out of place that Greg kept interrupting their conversation with bouts of laughter. 

“Why?” Mycroft wonders when he mentions this to him.

“No idea,” Greg admits, stretching a bit until the cushion isn’t digging into his back anymore. 

Maybe, he muses the next day, it’s because both of them have time-consuming jobs. Though this also doesn’t really pose a problem during their first week together, contrary to everything Greg has been preparing himself for. The day after their first date, he finishes interviewing a witness earlier than expected and has another hour to kill until Molly will have finished his test results, so Greg picks up two muffins and drops by Mycroft’s office. 

He has only been there twice before, but Mycroft’s scarily beautiful PA lets him through without a problem. Mycroft looks up from a stack of files and smiles, wide and genuine, when he sees who is visiting unannounced. 

“Hope I’m not interrupting?”

Mycroft makes a dismissive hand gesture. “I’m sure Latveria won’t declare a war on anyone in the next thirty minutes.”

“If you say so,” Greg says slowly, not sure whether or not Mycroft is joking. 

He isn’t, as it turns out that weekend. Mycroft had originally been scheduled to visit his parents with Sherlock and John for Christmas (something he had complained about that Friday evening, when they made it to an actual bed), but has to cancel on Saturday when the Latveria crisis escalates. 

Greg doesn’t see neither hide nor hair of him for forty-eight hours, doesn’t even get a text. It’s fine, really. He is on duty anyway. 

His doorbell rings at six in the morning on Boxing Day, and opening it reveals a Mycroft bearing breakfast food, looking like he was run over by a lorry. 

“Happy Christmas, Gregory.”

“ _Jesus Christ_ , what happened to you?”

“Nothing clever renegotiations of export agreements wouldn’t put a stop to. Though I would much rather talk about how you liked your present.”

Greg tilts his head. “What present?”

Mycroft’s expression darkens, but his anger is not directed at him, as far as Greg can tell. “It should be in your wardrobe.”

It is, as a quick check confirms – three garment bags identical to the one in which Renée placed his suit, holding three more sets in different styles. 

“How did they get there?”

“Seeing as I have been indisposed the past two days, I had one of my staff deliver them. I’d have put them underneath the tree, but you did not install one.”

Greg figures he has two options: either he throws a fit because Mycroft had some poor minion break into Greg’s flat when he could have just sent a package like a normal person, or he rolls with it. After years of handling Sherlock, rolling with it seems to make more sense when faced with weird actions of a Holmes. 

So he laughs at Mycroft’s snide remark to the lack of Christmas tree and says, truthfully, “They’re lovely. Too bloody expensive, but lovely.”

Mycroft smiles. “If there’s anything wrong, just have Renée make adjustments.” He squints. “What is it?” 

Daft idea, thinking he could hide his unease… “My present’s, well… Not as great. Wasn’t sure if I should get you anything in the first place. I mean, Sherlock’s pretty anti-Christmas, and I couldn’t help but think you’re probably not a fan, either.”

“Alas, a point could be made that my present is more self-serving than festive. As to the holiday…” Mycroft breathes out loudly. “I do appreciate the custom of coming up with personalised gift choices.”

“It’s the thought that counts?” Greg translates. “Really?”

The other man shrugs, then wanders into the kitchen where he sets down the bag of still steaming takeaway before retrieving plates, giving Greg the opportunity to pull his present out from underneath his bed. 

Gift shopping for Mycroft Holmes proved daunting. The unique brand of booze the bloke drinks proved impossible to find in the limited time Greg had at his disposal; Greg knows too little about Mycroft to confidently select books, and in terms of technology the man can just smooch off MI6’s RTD department. Which he does, as Mycroft admitted on their first date. 

He briefly considered a new cane, but he figured the model Mycroft is using has been thoroughly upgraded. An umbrella would have been redundant, since the need to walk with a cane prevented Mycroft from bringing his beloved brolly everywhere.

Which is what inspired the eventual last minute gift shopping Greg did after work on Saturday. 

Mycroft unwraps the small square box with deft fingers and as much focus as he usually awards the buttons of Greg’s shirts while Greg watches, hoping he did not bollocks this up. But hell, it’s only their first week as a couple. He should be forgiven if his new boyfriend can’t see the humour in black umbrella cufflinks. 

Mycroft gets it. He laughs and kisses Greg, the food forgotten on the kitchen table for a long time. 

*

They see each other pretty much every day after that, sometimes during their lunch break or for a brief afternoon date, sometimes at night when Greg cooks or Mycroft treats him to a meal at a restaurant. 

Somehow, they never end up at Mycroft’s place and Greg isn’t sure how to raise the issue. He does, however, mention New Year’s Eve and taking Mycroft along with him to John and Sherlock’s party. 

“As my plus one! How about that?”

“I fail to see how celebrating the last day of a calendar only in its current form because the Christians were dissatisfied with the timing of Easter in the company of my brother would be something I could derive joy from.”

“I already agreed to come, Mycroft. Besides, you should be damn grateful I haven’t had a case that required Sherlock’s help – he’d have deduced I’m shagging you eventually. It’s inevitable, really, him finding out. Might as well control how it happens.”

In the end, Mycroft begrudgingly (very begrudgingly) agrees to tag along, so Greg drops in on John at the hospital two days before the 31st to make sure it’s all right. 

John, wearing a white coat that fails to hide the large love bite on his neck, infers the completely wrong thing from Greg’s sudden presence. 

“Is there a case? You mind if Sherlock comes on his own – I sorta have to fumigate the flat before the party. Experiments, you know.”

“Yeah, mate… About New Year,” Greg says, and John narrows his eyes. “Mind if I bring a plus one?”

“I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”

“Well, it’s a recent development.”

“Serious enough to bring her along? Or is this a sort of Sherlock test?”

Greg snorts at the irony. “Nah, mate. You’ll see when we get there.”

“Can’t wait to meet her,” John enthuses.

“Him,” Greg corrects, and that pulls John up short for a moment. Then, like the bloke sitting in a glasshouse that he is when it comes to this particular topic, he shrugs, telling Greg to remember to bring beer and meat for the fondue. 

They are the first to arrive, mostly because getting said beer didn’t take as long as Greg had thought. Mycroft is carrying a bottle of whisky, hurriedly pulled from his cabinet after Greg told him about John wanting to make punch for everyone. 

“Wanna bet that John’s wearing one of his ugly Christmas jumpers?” Greg jokes on the car ride there. Not for the first time he wonders what sort of bonuses Mycroft’s staff receives for working such awful hours. 

“Depending on the stakes of said wager.”

Maybe the reply comes a little too quickly, but Greg can’t not seize the chance. “You win, you get to take me to the opera like you’ve been asking,” something Greg has been declining vehemently; his idea of culture begins and ends with the Doctor Who Christmas Special, “and if I win, I get to see your flat. Or house. Or castle. Or lair. Or cave.”

Thankfully, Mycroft chuckles. “Why would I live in a cave?” 

“Because there’s got to be something you don’t want me to see?” Greg freezes. “Uh, I mean…”

“No, it’s quite all right. I have been avoiding this, haven’t I?” Mycroft at least sounds apologetic. “It’s nothing ghastly, I assure you, Gregory. My flat is not as comfortable as yours, however.” 

“Well, guess we’ll find out if I win, won’t we?”

They set the parameters, namely which type of ugly jumper they think John will wear, and Greg’s smile widens when John opens the door to 221 Baker Street in the red and blue monstrosity with both stylised snowmen and reindeer, given to him by his sister last year, and not the blue one with the black outline of the London Eye and Father Christmas on his sleigh in the sky. Mycroft simply sighs behind him. 

John greets Greg with a manly pat on the back, his shoulders tensing when he spies who is with him. “Mycroft? What are you doing here?”

Greg raises both his eyebrows at him. For someone who caught Sherlock’s fancy, John can be rather daft at times. 

He sees the exact moment John figures it out. Greg has been entertaining himself with thoughts about how his friend might react and he isn’t disappointed – after a brief widening of his eyes, John bursts into laughter. 

“Jesus, this is brilliant! Come in, come in,” he beckons, and whatever he wants to say next is rendered intelligible by the honest to God _giggling_ that interrupts it at regular intervals. 

“He doesn’t know yet, right?” John asks, looking way too eager, while Greg puts the beer and the meat in the fridge. “Can I be the one to tell him? Please?”

Before either Greg or Mycroft have a chance to react, the doorbell rings, but Greg can already hear Mrs Hudson downstairs, letting in the new arrivals. 

“Hello,” Molly greets them, passing them by to put down a few Tupperware containers in the kitchen. She is wearing a dress again, yet nothing as provocative as the Christmas featuring the embarrassing present debacle. 

She is followed by a tall, black wall of muscle, dressed in jeans and a navy blue shirt. His name is Hank, though the ladies of Greg’s precinct (and a few men) have dubbed him, in a flash of staggering creativity, ‘Hank The Hunk’. The first two weeks after starting to work on Greg’s team, the man must have been asked out at least twelve times. It only took two dates with two different women to establish that his morbid sense of humour is really not for everyone. 

Greg promptly dragged him along to St Bart’s as soon as the next opportunity arose, where Molly only needed to make one incredibly insensitive joke about corpses to immediately win Hank over. They have been dating ever since. Molly even comes to watch Hank play football with the other bobbies on the weekends. 

“Where’s Sherlock?” Molly eventually asks once everyone either has a beer or a tumbler in hand. “And I thought you said something about punch?”

“Well, Sherlock’s out at the shops to replace the punch I made and told him specifically to leave alone, but when I came home today he’d converted it into one of his experiments. So I sent him out.”

“And he went? What the bloody hell did you threaten him with?” Greg wonders, slightly impressed. 

John winks. “Turns out withholding sex works wonders.”

“I gotta remember that,” Greg says, clinking his bottle against Mycroft’s glass with a smirk. He can see the man’s usually so blank mask crack a tad, the corners of his lips twitching as his eyes clearly seem to argue Greg would be the first one to crack in such a scenario. 

“Why do you have to remember that?” Molly asks then, leading to a lot of stammering out congratulations when Greg reveals that Mycroft is here as his plus one, which is when Mrs Hudson enters the flat. 

She has donned a nice cardigan-jumper-skirt combination, still leaving Mycroft in his three-piece suit the best-dressed guest. Greg chose a black turtleneck and his favourite jacket, mostly because Mycroft has expressed how much he likes seeing him in turtlenecks. 

“I’m late; I’m terribly sorry,” Mrs Hudson chatters away immediately, “but I just spent ten minutes on the phone with Sherlock… why is he at the shops? What happened to the punch I made you, John?”

Greg turns to his mate with a grin, calling him out on his earlier lie. John returns his look with a twitch of his eyebrows, spelling something along the lines of, ‘I’d like to see you make a punch, Lestrade’.

Two minutes of worrying about Sherlock buying punch ingredients on his own later, Mrs Hudson notices Mycroft’s presence. 

“I’m here with Gregory,” he states, and unlike Molly the landlady catches on immediately. 

Greg has been wondering how she might react, though he has to admit the warm smile comes as a bit of a surprise. As far as he is aware, she’s not the biggest fan of Sherlock’s brother.

“That’s nice, dear,” she gushes. “You both work too much. It’s good that you have someone.”

A loud commotion echoing up the stairs through the still-ajar flat door cuts off any reply Greg could have made, heralding Sherlock’s return. 

“John, the information you provided proved insufficient! You just said to get Brandy, but how am I supposed to know which kind of Brandy? There’re so many! And ‘allspice’, that’s just ridiculous – I refuse to buy a blend of spices you can just as easily combine yourself with much better results!” Sherlock manages to continue his rant until all his bags have been placed in the kitchen, not pausing for a second to greet either of the guests, while John watches with heart-shaped eyes and Greg chuckles at Hank’s flabbergasted expression. 

“Molly warned me, but…”

“Yeah,” Greg echoes just as Sherlock re-emerges from the kitchen, fixing John with wide eyes that practically beg him to say he did fine. 

“It’s all right, darling. I’m sure Mrs Hudson will manage to make something work.”

“Still not your housekeeper, dear,” she says, contradicting the statement when she slips into the kitchen anyway. 

Which is when Sherlock notices the guests, eyes narrowing when they land on his brother. Greg can feel the man stiffening next to him. 

“What’s Mycroft doing here?” Sherlock scoffs, turning an accusatory glare at John, whose fond smile has morphed into a true Cheshire Cat grin. 

“Can I tell him?” John asks again, a little too excited for good taste. After exchanging a glance with Mycroft, Greg nods. John takes a deep breath while Sherlock blinks, obviously confused. “He’s here with Greg.”

“I can see that, but that still doesn’t –”

“They’re together,” John tries again, and now the information registers. 

Greg has to admit, it’s kind of hilarious. Sherlock’s features derail as the news seems to have rendered him briefly mute. John uses the time to take a picture on his phone, declaring it his new background image, and Sherlock’s eyes begin to move rapidly, like they do when he pulls off one of his deductions. 

Greg wonders what he notices – maybe the state of Greg’s knees? Or the beard burn decorating Mycroft’s throat, irritated patches of skin peeking out underneath his collar? Presumably the detective also notices Greg’s stance that keeps the soreness in his arse from bothering him too much, for the man quickly squeezes his eyes shut with a grimace. 

His expression quickly turns guileful after that. “What happened to living in a world of goldfish, brother dear?”

Mycroft is actually smiling when Greg glances at him, meeting his brother’s gaze calmly. “It turns out there are some exceptions.”

“What’s that make him, then? A dolphin?”

“A manta ray.” 

That has Sherlock snort unattractively in response. “A manta ray? What, tame and boring?”

“Better than a dog, wagging his tail and following you around waiting for you to play with him.”

“John is not a dog!” Sherlock hisses, taking a step towards Mycroft, at which point Greg tunes the brothers out. 

He joins Hank who is watching with an incredulous expression. He can hear Molly puttering about in the kitchen with Mrs Hudson, probably setting up the fondue. 

“Goldfish?”

“I have no idea,” Greg admits. “Those two live in their own world, sometimes. Sure it makes sense, in Holmes logic.”

Hank shakes his head, swallowing half his beer in one go. 

“So, how was Christmas? Meeting the folks, yes?”

The sergeant nods. “And we bought a new cat. Lively little bugger.” Hank presents his palm, which is covered in little scratch marks. Greg lets the cat-talk wash over him. Don’t get him wrong, he’s thrilled Molly managed to move on after Moriarty brutally flayed her old pet in revenge for one-upping him regarding Sherlock’s death, but he’s still more of a dog person. 

When the fondue is ready, Greg and John exchange a long-suffering look and pull their boyfriends apart, who have somehow started insulting each other’s childhood habits. Greg files most of the titbits he learns away for future reference and claims one half of the sofa by pushing Mycroft down and settling into his side while the others carry out the fondue pot and the punch. 

Dinner passes more or less amicably. The peace ends when Molly suggests they all play a game. 

“Not operation,” Mycroft insists with a viciousness that Greg finds slightly disconcerting. 

“We could play Risk; it’s basically what Mycroft does every day at work.”

“I assure you it is much more delicate than _rolling dice_ , Sherlock.”

Yet Mrs Hudson votes for Pictionary, which for some unexplainable reason is in the bag of games Molly brought with her, so Pictionary it is. Sherlock immediately declares John his team partner while Molly snatches up Mrs Hudson for her and Hank’s team. Greg settles more firmly into the proprietary arm Mycroft has slung over his shoulders. 

If Greg learns one lesson that night, it is to never ever let John and Sherlock team up for a party game ever again. The three groups take turns, one member drawing a word with the other trying to guess what it is, and it quickly becomes evident that no matter which explanation Sherlock decides makes most sense in his head, the transferal to paper is where it goes wrong. 

He tries to explain “present” by drawing the group sitting around the table playing Pictionary “in the present, John! How could you not get that?!” 

But Greg’s favourite is Sherlock mistaking polish as in nail polish for Polish, subsequently drawing first a liverwurst, some version of the solar system (looking really proud of himself to have thought of that, which sends Greg into a laughing fit as he recalls John’s blog post from a few years ago), end then a dead woman holding a decanter. 

Mycroft’s chest is vibrating with supressed laughter. Of course the tosser knows exactly what his brother is getting at. John? Not so much. 

“Oh, uh, sausage. Uh, bratwurst? Oh, the solar system. Uh, unidentified flying liverwurst? I don’t…” 

Sherlock draws the woman, including two ‘x’ where her eyes should be. “Come on, John, I am spoon-feeding this to you.” 

“It’s Polish,” Mycroft declares after another thirty seconds of more and more desperate guessing, leading to a mocking, “Honestly, John, how could you not get that?”

Things aren’t easier when John is the one drawing, however. He fills a circle with little dots. Greg is spotting him, so he knows the card reads ‘chocolate chip biscuit’. 

Sherlock couldn’t be further from the solution, though. 

“It’s a petri dish.”

“No.” 

“It’s a quark-gluon plasma.”

“No.”

“It’s asymptotically free partons inside a quark-gluon plasma.”

“Nothing with quacks –” 

“Obviously, since you can’t even pronounce them.” 

John taps the drawing with his pen. “It’s a bloody chocolate chip biscuit!”

Sherlock blinks. 

Greg is proud to say that he and Mycroft are doing marginally better. All right, not when Mycroft tries to make Greg infer “satellite” from drawing a map of Russia and its satellite states. Yet Mycroft successfully guesses “evolution” from Greg’s rendition of that one T-shirt with that one meme he’s seen about town for years. Or Greg interprets Mycroft’s (pretty well-drawn) dog as “loyalty”, which makes Sherlock scowl at them. 

Needless to say, Molly, Hank, and Mrs Hudson wipe the floor with them. 

“New teams!” Greg announces after Sherlock seems ready to shake John for failing to understand the strange lines officially exemplifying “déjà vu” that has Mycroft laugh out loud and everyone else baffled. 

“Holmeses versus women, versus policemen and ex-soldiers.”

It proves a good idea. Greg draws what Hank and John recognise as a bodybuilder next to a robot, and John immediately shouts “Terminator!” to Sherlock and Mycroft’s great confusion. 

“We’re going to watch some films,” Greg decides, stealing a quick kiss from his boyfriend. 

Who makes his brother guess “eureka” with a bathtub and a stick figure. 

“This is Archimedes,” Mycroft explains patiently to the blinking group. “He is said to have exclaimed ‘eureka’ when he noticed his body displaced water, thus solving his dilemma of determining whether or not the King’s crown was made of real gold.” 

Needless to say, the Holmes brothers win that round by a staggering margin. No one cares, though, since everyone is having fun. So much so, in fact, that they almost miss the countdown. 

They hurriedly put on their coats, gloves, and scarves before they brave the cold night air on the balcony of what used to be John’s bedroom and is now Sherlock’s as well. It’s a tight fit and they yield the best positions at the railing to Molly, Hank, and Mrs Hudson just as the clock strikes midnight and the firework starts. They can hear the distant _boom boom_ from the Thames and see some of the colourful lights in the dark sky. 

“Come here,” Greg says, pulling Mycroft down by his tie. He can hear Sherlock complain about the sentimentality of said custom, made up by people only to ensure singles feel bad about the New Year, until John tells him to shut up and kisses him, too. 

It might have been a little more than kissing, though, since as soon as the firework is over, Sherlock declares New Year’s Eve over too, thus putting an end to him minding his manners with the guests (apparently something John made him promise earlier). 

“Lovely party, let’s not do it again any time soon, you can let yourselves out, can’t you?”

“Sherlock!” Mrs Hudson chides. 

“Well, if you wanted me to stay polite for another hour, John shouldn’t have kissed me like that.”

The doctor just groans and buries his face in the nape of Sherlock’s neck, still on his toes. 

“It’s fine,” Molly insists, “we should get home to Nala. I’m sure she’s scared from the firework.”

Nala must be the cat’s new name, Greg thinks. Sherlock isn’t even paying attention anymore, one hand stroking John’s hip bone through his trousers, the other placed comfortably on his chest. 

“No worries, mate. Have fun,” he comments, sliding his hand down Mycroft’s arm until he is holding his hand and can use it to tug the man towards the staircase. 

Mrs Hudson follows the four of them, shaking her head and muttering about her tenants’ lack of manners. As if to prove her point, they hear a loud bang from above as the bedroom door is pulled shut with more gusto than necessary. 

“I’d really like to have a word with your mother one day,” she tells Mycroft while the man is retrieving his bottle of alcohol from the coffee table. 

“Feel free to do so, Mrs Hudson, though I doubt it will shed any more light on how none of my best qualities manifested in Sherlock.”

Molly and Hank laugh at that, and just to prove he has not been raised in the same barn as Sherlock (or that’s at least Greg’s theory), he offers the young couple to take them home. 

“Are you safe to drive?” Hank wonders, squinting at Greg as if that will tell him his blood alcohol level. 

“Nah, Hank. I think Mycroft means via cab.”

“In fact, our car is still waiting outside, Gregory.”

Now that’s news to him. “You let that poor bloke wait?” 

“It’s his job, after all.” Mycroft sounds completely unapologetic about the entire thing, yet when he explains that the junior agent behind the steering wheel volunteered for this shift to secure the hefty bonus attached to it since he is saving up to renovate his aging foster parents’ bathroom… Well. There’s not much either Greg, Molly or Hank can criticise about it. 

“How did you two get together?” Molly asks once they’re all seated in the back of the car. 

“Mycroft asked me to be his fake date to someone’s Christmas party,” Greg says immediately before his boyfriend can intervene. He considers Molly a friend, and as such she deserves the truth. “We had a good time. I asked him out afterwards.”

“That’s nice,” Molly enthuses, the same moment Hank asks, “Whose party?”

“Barbara Daly,” Mycroft volunteers. “Last year I had to solve a crisis and couldn’t attend.”

Hank’s eyes have become as wide as saucers. “That’s the head of MI5.”

Greg nods with a wry grin. “Still can’t believe I met her. And Gareth Millstone.”

“Don’t forget the Prime Minister, Gregory.”

Greg arches an eyebrow at his boyfriend’s smug tone while Hank just shakes his head in awe. They fill the rest of the drive to Molly’s flat by relating the encounter with Greg’s first wife, Mycroft finishing off Greg’s sentences and adding scathing remarks in that flat tone of his. 

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Greg points out once Molly and Hank have been deposited on their doorstep. 

“Miss Hooper and Mr Dawson are not as dull as I expected.”

“So they’re not goldfish?”

Mycroft groans. “You caught that, didn’t you?”

“Yup. And John’s a dog?”

“It’s something Sherlock and I started the first time we met other children. Until then, I thought my brother was the pinnacle of dim-wittedness. As it turned out, regular people considered him smart.”

“And you put kids into categories? Like, which animal they resemble?” Greg can’t say if he’s amused or appalled. 

“Yes. Though we stopped soon when it only made the bullying worse. Two years ago, I told Sherlock I was living in a world of goldfish.”

Now Greg grins, placing a hand on Mycroft’s chest and playing with the lapels of his suit. “But I’m not a goldfish. I’m a manta ray.”

To his pleasure, Mycroft actually blushes at that. “Well. Yes. Manta rays are quite clever; inherently docile yet vicious when attacked.” He shrugs, not meeting Greg’s eyes. “I thought it fitting.”

“From you, ‘quite clever’ is a huge compliment. Careful, or you’ll inflate my ego and I won’t fit through the entrance to your cave.”

Mycroft laughs, and Greg feels the hand on his shoulders move until familiar fingers are caressing the nape of his neck. “I assure you, Gregory, it is not a cave.”

It’s not a mansion either, as it turns out. Just a very large, expensively decorated flat on Pall Mall near St James’ Palace, close to both Buckingham Palace and Westminster. Of course Mycroft has a valet, and a cook who also functions as housekeeper to him and three other residents. 

The flat is spotlessly clean, every surface so shiny that Greg is a tad afraid to touch anything. 

“Blimey,” he mutters as he takes in the view from the seventh floor. Good thing the building has a lift, or Mycroft would probably have had to move after he got out of rehab. 

“Like I said,” Mycroft’s voice sounds close to his ear, “it’s much less comfortable than yours, Gregory. I’m hardly here, except to sleep and take my breakfast. Sometimes dinner, though the housekeeper takes care of that for me and leaves something in the oven when I ask her to.”

There are so many questions Greg burns to ask, the most intriguing of which being, Is he the first partner Mycroft ever brought here? If not, who were the others? 

But he doesn’t ask any of them, something for which Mycroft seems to be grateful if the way his posture relaxes is any indication as Greg simply steps closer. They have time for questions. They have an entire new year ahead of them, without Moriarty to make their lives hell. 

“Come on,” Greg murmurs, his voice dipping low on purpose. “Give me a tour. And finish it with the bedroom.”

“My pleasure, Gregory,” Mycroft purrs back, pulling him along by the loops of his belt.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. **Happy New Year, y'all =)** and comments are love!
> 
> PS: Those familiar with The Big Bang Theory might have recognised some lines during Pictionary that I have borrowed. :)  
> For those interested, here are the [pictionary clips from Big Bang Theory](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8lMW0MODFs), [the jumper John is not wearing](https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/light-up-christmas-jumper-sky-grade-j-c3ba18-61762-e1414689829247.jpg), and [the jumper he is wearing](http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0185/1470/products/4689A-FRONT-2-800_large.jpg?v=1349553424%27).


End file.
